Caged Porcelain
by Misao's angel
Summary: AU In the early 20th century Japan Yuki stumbles upon and rescues a sickly Akito from his cage, and gives him all he ever wanted. A one shot with shonen Ai.


A Doll's Cage

_"10 more minutes."_

Even the sky grows nostalgic as I remember that day… As each snowflake falls a new detail emerges. Yes...

The day was cold, the apex of a winter like no other. I was a sickly child, -victim of the inevitable death, tuberculosis- locked in a room with no more than dolls for company. My parents feared me -the **_world_** feared me- feared the death that spreads with each liquid cough. But rather than fighting the inevitable, my cause was abandoned. It's only a matter of time before I die, whether the death is from my lungs or my heart. There was no need for then to mind me, but out of an unexplainable courtesy custom to any decent parent- they did just what was needed to keep me alive. Was I born just to feel pain? Before my lungs what hurts is this loneliness, this longing… My entire life before I spent in this room with countless dolls, each a gift with a card entitled "for your happiness". But if they truly wished for my "happiness", why couldn't they have given it to me themselves? Glass hearts, no matter how many, ease no pain. Wooden bodies, no mater how beautiful, hold no warmth. Despite all of these dolls, I was so infinitely lonely.

But that cold winter day as I stared so longingly at the world, I saw something I had never seen before. My garden, beautiful even in this month of death, spread to what seemed like infinity, as if to laugh in my face, showing me how immense and beautiful the world I could never experience was. Amongst this beauty sat a myriad of trees, but none even in comparison to the splendor of one, small Sakura tree. In the bluish shade of the Temporarily dead tree a boy rested, a peaceful aura surrounding the calm, beautiful features of his face. From my mansion, the boy was no more than 100 yards, but to me he was unreachable. My urge to escape this captivity grew immensely stronger as I watched this boy under the dying flowers. His clothes were suited for a peasant; the calluses on his hands were incrusted with dirt. Yet something about him seemed so majestic, that even an act as simple as sleep was so mesmerizing if it was he who was sleeping. The boy gave me a strange comfort, one that let me forget this pain in my destroyed lungs. It was as if he was the unexplainable cure to the disease formally claimed incurable existed in the soft, gentle aura that was emitted from his presence.

_"9 more minutes."_

From then on, every day I would gaze out the window, and there he was. Though he wasn't always there, sure, somewhere around midnight each night he'd leave somewhere, and return around two or three in the dark hours of the morning. I vaguely wondered where he might have gone, but I just assumed he returned to his home. I envied him. He could leave his home whenever he wanted. He wasn't caged like a bird in a room full of these mindless, heartless toys. Just one day I wished I could speak to him, just to ask him how it feels to wander in the snow.

The cold was just a faint memory then -for years I had lived in the same 75-degree temperature- I no longer knew any other. This room, this life, nothing would change, nothing, until the day that boy first came. It had been so long since I had any seen a human, other than the hand that appeared through the flap on my door to bring me meals. But whomever placed the food, be it my mother or father, had never spoken a word to me. It's a wonder I still remembered how to speak myself. So ever since I saw that boy, I wanted more every day to talk to him. But he still didn't know I existed… or at least until that one night. Just before he left his spot by the sakura tree, he turned to look at the mansion as though it was the first time he had noticed it's existence. His eyes drifted towards my window, and just for one second, our glances met. His eyes were magnificent emerald orbs, illuminated with a glimmer of pained truth- yet so empty; a site that made me wonder if they truly _saw_ me. But then again, as faint as it was, the tips his lips curved into a smile. With that, as if a parting word, he turned back to his usual path, and left me to my pondering mind.

"_8 more minutes."_

Every night after, our eyes had a chance to meet. No words were needed, for all that was to be said was exchanged by our eyes. It was not long before my plea was heard it seemed- for he left his place by the sakura tree to a tree right outside my abode. Before I had time to think, he was standing on a thick branch, just a foot from my window. I felt it my duty to open this window and let him in before he fell. But something unexpected happened. The arm I held out to pull him in, he took to help me on to the branch. Wordlessly he lifted me on to his back, and carried me as he climbed down to the snow-covered ground. I slowly jumped off, and shivered violently at the sudden realization of the cold air. He looked at me expectantly.

"T-Thank you…"

Again he smiled as he took my hand.

"We can't stay here any longer. You'll have to go back if someone catches us."

With that he ran with my hand in his, until we were far enough from my mansion to lose site of it behind the giant walls that surrounded the property. My lungs were threatening to burst from exhaustion, but still I ran, with this boy leading me. Continuously I wished he wouldn't learn of my condition. **_Please don't cough... Please don't let me cough... _**and sure enough, for the time in my entire life a wish was granted. Not one drop of blood left my mouth. Happiness swelled in my chest as I realized he must have reached his destination, for suddenly he stopped, and turned towards me. Once again I tested my recently dormant voice.

"Who are you?"

The boy hesitantly replied.

"Just an orphan, whose name isn't worth reciting. But if you must, call me 'Yuki'."

I just stood silently for a moment.

"Why do you always sit by the sakura tree?"

He looked at me with those emerald orbs- this time coated with a deep sorrow.

"I'm waiting for someone."

For a silent moment I stared at those pained eyes.

"For who…?"

He turned back towards the road, and kept silent long enough after to convince me he wasn't about to reply, but then proved me wrong.

"My mother."

"_7 more minutes."_

I thought he was an orphan. Why would he be waiting for…

_**Unless that was why she never came.**_

"I'm sorry…"

"No, it's alright. I've had long enough to mourn. You see... My mother was always trying her best for me... ever since father left he told her long ago to wait at that tree- a symbolic place to them. Well, anyway, one night she returned home from work coughing blood. I guess she wanted to see him once more before she died... -she followed after him- with the promise that she would return if I would wait... At the Sakura tree."

After a short pause, he looked at me again.

"What about you? Why were you locked in that room?"

That's right. He didn't know anything about me. Maybe... Because of his mom he would understand me... Maybe I could tell him...

"My parents fear me... because..." _**oh no! I'm going to cough, aren't I? I'm going to be alone again!** _ " I have... tuberculosis..." **_Why... why aren't I coughing?_ **"It's been years since I first caught this, but the most I've ever heard from them was a letter with a doll on my birthday. They refuse to be near me... I don't remember what they look like anymore. I'm not even sure if they are still even in the house..."

Once again this "Yuki" smiled.

"I guess we both had our share of troubles then."

"_6 more minutes."_

That night I learned where he ventured at midnight. Deep in a forest, only half a mile from my mansion, laid an old wooden cabin, which I believed belonged to his mother, but I never asked. I quickly adapted to life in this cabin with this boy whose real name I still didn't know. But then again, he still didn't know mine.

Soon after I lost track of time. Day was spent "gathering" food from the villagers, exploring the town and the forest, and learning how to cook and sew from an old lady who lived near by the market, while night was learning how to read, and of course, sleep. This schedule would repeat each day, yet every day held a new surprise. But strangely enough, the largest surprize was that it was as if my time there was a panacea... never did my lungs or my heart ache since my departure from the mansion. This life was causing the memory of that pain to slowly fade... until that day...

After noon I would guess, by the position of the sun, something I never could have imagined took me by surprise. Just as I was preparing lunch, I noticed a massive smoke cloud hovering a short ways from the cabin. In the direction my mansion had lay. Curiosity led me as I hurried towards this smoke cloud. Yuki at first tried to stop me, but when his antics were rendered useless he decided to follow me instead.

When we reached the flaming heap I learned my hunch had not been incorrect, for before me was a great ball of fire, which was once my mansion. But for some unexplained reason, despite my loathing for this cage in which I nested before, I felt it my duty to at least salvage _something_ from my past prison. I picked a good time at least, for the mansion had been burning long enough to turn the second story into the first. I easily jumped into my open window, and grabbed at my only possession in site the fire had not destroyed. In a pile of ashes, just before me, lay my favorite doll. Her hair, once golden, was black from the ashes. Her azure eyes almost liquid from the heat; her skin a dark shade rather than the creamy white it had once been. Though still she was beautiful. The heat prevented me from grasping that beauty. Desperately I tried- but as soon as my skin neared the orange light it pulled back instinctively in pain. I must have spent too long- for as I turned to give up, the window was hidden behind a wall of flames. Fear controlled my thoughts as I fell so painfully into a pile of ashes- I was trapped. Once again my cage had imprisoned me, taking advantage of my innocence by drawing back into the trap with the bait of curiosity. My entire life I had expected, even waited for this escapement entitled "death"... But for some reason I couldn't explain, life now meant more to me... Other than pain I felt happiness, I finally felt what I wished for so long- only to be rewarded with death. But just as all hope was lost, a dark figure ran bravely through those flames I feared so intensely, and within a second lifted me and one other as it escaped the cage, my cage, for life. I returned to the cabin that night with a single doll as my only reminder. I was finally free.

"_5 more minutes."_

Once again time passed, I grew wiser as I began to understand the world. I quickly learned it was not the utopia I imagined- war, famine, poverty... all of this as common as my coughs. This country was so beautiful... when not stained with blood. The Shinsengumi and Ishin Shinshi fought frequently amongst the streets, innocent citizens only had to walk by to provoke them into a murderous frenzy. Countless times I had to run past a dead body just freshly sliced by the katana of a Hitokiri just to return home with out violently coughing.

Yuki found a job through lies at a candy store, and I spent my days sewing clothes to sell to people in the town. Our income was not handsome, but it was enough to keep us fed. I grew to know more about Yuki than I ever imagined to, learning his dream of venturing into space one day, and his dislike-even _hate _for alcohol. It seemed his father was an alcoholic- whom even struck a heavy blow to Yuki's chin one night when a loss in a gamble caused him to produce 15 empty bottles of sake- which spread across the floor. He would tell me something new as he taught me simple principles in "math" and "science" each night. It was expected that I would prepare meals and repair clothes in return.

The more time I spent with him, the more I felt I needed his presence. Even after he learned of my sickness- he was the only one who still treated me like a person, rather than the lethal disease I carried. This was something I could never have imagined... I was forever grateful to his kindness... To his ability to see me for who I **_was_.**

"_4 more minutes."_

It was a day that started like any other, Yuki rushing off to work while I stayed in the cabin to prepare the ingredients for lunch when he returned. But just as I began chopping the vegetables, a loud siren could be heard from the city. Once again I plainly assumed it was the usual affairs of the violent Shinsengumi, but after a moment left to my mind a terrible feeling grew in my chest. I felt it. Something bad was about to happen.

"_3 more minutes."_

It seemed the war had taken a turn for the worse, and the desperate army was searching for young men to die for their cause. **_Young men… Yuki… They were going to take him, weren't they? No! I don't want to be alone again… no more... please no more pain... _**A severe fit of coughs followed my worried thoughts, and fallen blood succeeded in staining my dress. **_Please don't let him go... Please..._**

I ran as fast as my legs would allow to the candy shop in which he earned us money for our meals. He was no where to be found. Panicking, I searched the entirety of the town, every place I could think of, yet still no sign of him. And then, I suddenly remembered. _The sakura tree_. Somehow I believe I knew that in the back of my mind, but didn't believe it. No. I refused to believe it. For where in seven years I had not even dared to visit he stood.

"_2 more minutes."_

As I stepped breathlessly towards him, I saw a sorrowful look in those eyes I hadn't seen since those days I watched him from the window. Be it because it favored the spring or my sorrow, the sakura tree was healthier than I had ever seen it before. It was filled with beautiful pink blossoms that fell with the lightest gust of wind. He stood in a fury of these falling blossoms, looking at me with those dark, pain filled orbs.

"Are… are you going?" I managed to choke.

He was silent. After what seemed like an eternity, he spoke, voice as sorrowful as his eyes.

"Will you wait for me?"

I could no longer hold back the tears. Between a mixture of coughs and sobs I breathed,

"Forever if I have to."

Those next few moments were like a dream, but one in which I would never wish to wake. The pain in my heart brought me to my knees, as silent tears dripped into the soil. That second I wished nothing more than death. But those feelings were erased as quickly as they came, for the next moment a warmth pressed against my shivering skin. I felt so safe in his arms, a feeling I wished could have lasted forever. When he broke our embrace, once again he stared into my eyes, but this time, with more determination than sorrow.

"When I return… will you marry me?"

My answer needed no thought.

"Of course!"

_"1 more minute."_

That was the last I ever saw of him. Once again I lost track of time, as I keep my promise: spending my life waiting for him. But even when the war was long over, and he still didn't return, I waited. What means so much to me, the memories I wish were everlasting are so ephemeral… almost non-existent in comparison to the endless flow of time. I know this, maybe too well, but despite this knowledge, I still wish they could stay with me- a forever lingering thought in the back of this mind, if need be. I wish I could wait forever. I wish I could stay…. I don't want to die… not before I can tell him that simple phrase…

"I love you."

"_I'm sorry… he's gone. It's weird though... As far as I can tell there is nothing wrong with him... It's as though his mind died and brought his body with it!"_

"_Poor guy… spent his life locked up alone in that room… it's enough to make **anyone** crazy."_

"_Yeah, but his blood line didn't help either. His parents were loons! Wouldn't let him out of that room, not even when they almost burnt that house down 40 years ago! He was just another one of those dolls to them- only there to look at- not to take care of... to love..." _

"_Well, let's carry him out now, shall we?" _

From a cold hand slipped a charred glass doll- shattering as it hit the hard, stone floor.


End file.
